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"When they allow a talk show host to play them like a two-dollar banjo, they demonstrate what kind of backbone they'll bring to the job later on, if we elect them. After they get elected will they continue to allow Jeff Crank to put a nickel in them and wind them up every Saturday morning?"

Barry Noreen, former columnist, Colorado Springs Gazette

Monday, February 28, 2011

A disturbing message entitled “A Warning from Holland” was shared on the internet is recent days and is attributed to Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch Parliament and Chairman of the Party for Freedom and Democracy. It is disturbing in its content but more so because Holland was the birthplace of my father and all of my grandparents. And it is additionally disturbing because a dear family friend to whom I forwarded the article with the comment “Sad.” responded with a short response “Yes, it is sad, because he is right.”

Below are excerpts of Mr. Wilders’ recent speech in New York.

“Dear friends, all is not well in the old world. There is a tremendous danger looming, and it is very difficult to be optimistic. We might be in the final stages of the Islamization of Europe. This not only is a clear and present danger to the future of Europe itself, it is a threat to America and the sheer survival of the West. The United States as the last bastion of Western civilization, facing an Islamic Europe.

“The Europe you know is changing. All throughout Europe a new reality is rising: entire Muslim neighborhoods where very few indigenous people reside or are even seen. And if they are, they might regret it. This goes for the police as well. It's the world of head scarves, where women walk around in figureless tents, with baby strollers and a group of children. Their husbands, or slaveholders if you prefer, walk three steps ahead. With mosques on many street corners. The shops have signs you and I cannot read. You will be hard-pressed to find any economic activity. These are Muslim ghettos controlled by religious fanatics. These are Muslim neighborhoods, and they are mushrooming in every city across Europe. These are the building-blocks for territorial control of increasingly larger portions of Europe, street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood, city by city.

“There are now thousands of mosques throughout Europe, with larger congregations than there are in churches. And in every European city there are plans to build super-mosques that will dwarf every church in the region. Clearly, the signal is: we rule. Many European cities are already one-quarter Muslim: just take Amsterdam, Marseille and Malmo in Sweden. In many cities the majority of the under-18 population is Muslim. In some elementary schools in Amsterdam the farm can no longer be mentioned, because that would also mean mentioning the pig, and that would be an insult to Muslims.

“In once-tolerant Amsterdam gays are beaten up almost exclusively by Muslims. Non-Muslim women routinely hear 'whore, whore'. In France school teachers are advised to avoid authors deemed offensive to Muslims, including Voltaire and Diderot; the same is increasingly true of Darwin. The history of the Holocaust can no longer be taught because of Muslim sensitivity.

“In England sharia courts are now officially part of the British legal system. Many neighborhoods in France are no-go areas for women without head scarves. Last week a man almost died after being beaten up by Muslims in Brussels, because he was drinking during the Ramadan. Jews are fleeing France in record numbers, on the run for the worst wave of anti-Semitism since World War II. A total of fifty-four million Muslims now live in Europe. Bernhard Lewis has predicted a Muslim majority by the end of this century. (This) would not be threatening if the Muslim-immigrants had a strong desire to assimilate. But there are few signs of that. The Pew Research Center reported that half of French Muslims see their loyalty to Islam as greater than their loyalty to France. One-third of French Muslims do not object to suicide attacks.

“The Christian-Democratic attorney general is willing to accept sharia in the Netherlands if there is a Muslim majority. We have cabinet members with passports from Morocco and Turkey. Muslim demands are supported by unlawful behavior, ranging from petty crimes and random violence, for example against ambulance workers and bus drivers, to small-scale riots. Paris has seen its uprising in the low-income suburbs, the banlieus. I call the perpetrators 'settlers'. Because that is what they are. They do not come to integrate into our societies; they come to integrate our society into their Dar-al-Islam. Therefore, they are settlers.

“The second thing you need to know is the importance of Mohammed the prophet. His behavior is an example to all Muslims and cannot be criticized. Mohammed was a warlord, a mass murderer, a pedophile, and a polygamist.“Let no one fool you about Islam being a religion. Sure, it has a god, and a here-after, and 72 virgins. But in its essence Islam is a political ideology. It is a system that lays down detailed rules for society and the life of every person. Islam wants to dictate every aspect of life. Islam means 'submission'. Islam is not compatible with freedom and democracy, because what it strives for is sharia. If you want to compare Islam to anything, compare it to communism or national-socialism, these are all totalitarian ideologies. Now you know why Winston Churchill called Islam 'the most retrograde force in the world', and why he compared Mein Kampf to the Quran.

“The war against Israel is not a war against Israel. It is a war against the West. It is jihad. Many in Europe argue in favor of abandoning Israel in order to address the grievances of our Muslim minorities. But if Israel were, God forbid, to go down, it would not bring any solace to the West It would not mean our Muslim minorities would all of a sudden change their behavior, and accept our values. On the contrary, the end of Israel would give enormous encouragement to the forces of Islam. They would, and rightly so, see the demise of Israel as proof that the West is weak, and doomed. The end of Israel would not mean the end of our problems with Islam, but only the beginning. It would mean the start of the final battle for world domination.

“In my country, the Netherlands, 60 percent of the population now sees the mass immigration of Muslims as the number one policy mistake since World War II. And another 60 percent sees Islam as the biggest threat. Yet there is a greater danger than terrorist attacks, the scenario of America as the last man standing. The lights may go out in Europe faster than you can imagine. An Islamic Europe means a Europe without freedom and democracy, an economic wasteland, an intellectual nightmare, and a loss of military might for America - as its allies will turn into enemies, enemies with atomic bombs. With an Islamic Europe, it would be up to America alone to preserve the heritage of Rome, Athens and Jerusalem.

“Dear friends, liberty is the most precious of gifts. My generation never had to fight for this freedom, it was offered to us on a silver platter, by people who fought for it with their lives. All throughout Europe , American cemeteries remind us of the young boys who never made it home, and whose memory we cherish. My generation does not own this freedom; we are merely its custodians. We can only hand over this hard won liberty to Europe 's children in the same state in which it was offered to us. We cannot strike a deal with mullahs and imams. Future generations would never forgive us. We cannot squander our liberties. We simply do not have the right to do so.

“We have to take the necessary action now to stop this Islamic stupidity from destroying the free world that we know.”

EPILOGUE: Comments on Multiculturalism

French President Nicolas Sarkozy : “My answer is clearly yes, it (multiculturalism) is a failure,” he said when asked about the policy which advocates that host societies welcome and foster distinct cultural and religious immigrant groups. “Of course we must all respect differences, but we do not want… a society where communities coexist side by side. “If you come to France, you accept to melt into a single community, which is the national community, and if you do not want to accept that, you cannot be welcome in France,” the right-wing president said. “The French national community cannot accept a change in its lifestyle, equality between men and women… freedom for little girls to go to school,” he said. “We have been too concerned about the identity of the person who was arriving and not enough about the identity of the country that was receiving him,” Sarkozy said.

Last October when German Chancellor Angela Merkel said “multiculturalism has failed, totally,” adding that immigrants should integrate and adopt Germany’s culture and values. “We feel tied to Christian values. Those who don’t accept them don’t have a place here,” said the chancellor.

British Prime Minister David Cameron also chimed in recently. “Under the doctrine of state multiculturalism, we have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and apart from the mainstream. We’ve failed to provide a vision of society to which they feel they want to belong. We’ve even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run completely counter to our values.”

One wonders if and when the President of the United States will join the dialogue and whether he will support the views of these European leaders who, after lessons learned, are aggressively abandoning multiculturalism. During a conversation with German Chancellor Merkel days ago President Obama, in reference to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, stated, “…he has lost his legitimacy to rule and needs to do what is right for his country…by leaving now.”

Mr. President it is time to exhibit real leadership and confront this “clear and present” worldwide danger….or step aside. Remember what Benjamin Franklyn once wrote “A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.”

Although Mr. Wilders, a former Roman Catholic, claims to be an agnostic (not a true athiest but one who claims there is no way of knowing if there is a God), I suggest he start praying anyway.

To my dad: Thank you for emigrating to America, becoming a U.S. citizen, and assimilating as an American first, learning the English language and embracing the values of our Founding Fathers. I too am proud of our shared heritage. Thanks, dad.